There are a lot of different types of cults. Most hear (read) the word, and their minds probably go to poisoned cool-aid and/or Hippie-Love compounds. But those are only two sub-genres (cults have genres now.—Go with it.) There’s also Cult Fandom. Something wrestling is no stranger to. Many wrestlers and promotions have developed cult followings of ravenous, devoted fans. And sometimes, cults within wrestling get their own cult following, which somewhat goes against the whole cult gimmick since you really want to book your cult characters as Heels. This was the case with Bray Wyatt. A young superstar who, by all accounts, should’ve been one of the pillars which WWE’s next era was built upon. Except time and time again, WWE screwed the pooch with the Bray character. And still, time and time again, Windham Rotunda would get over the Bray character.
Born into the business. Windham’s father is veteran pro wrestler Mike Rotunda, perhaps best known for his time portraying the money-obsessed VM Wallstreet as part of the NWO in WCW. He’d also enjoy a cup of coffee in the WWF New Gen Era under the ring name Irwin R. Schyster, teaming with “The Millionaire Man” Ted DiBiase. Mike would marry Stephanie Windham, the daughter of legendary wrestler Blackjack Mulligan. This also meant the boy who would be Bray grew up with uncles Barry Windham and Kendall Windham, both legends in their own right. It would almost seem destined that Windham Rotunda venture into the wild world of wrestling. A venture he’d finally undertake in 2009.
Using the serviceable ring name Tank Mulligan, the future Bray Wyatt debuted in a dark match at a Florida Championship Wrestling taping in February. He’d wrestle again on the following week’s taping—this time under the slightly altered ring name, Tank Rotundo. He’d alternate between the two names over the next several months before adding a third to the rotation, Duke Rotundo. It was under the Duke Rotundo name that Bray began teaming with his younger brother, Bo Rotundo. The two would eventually capture the FCW Tag Team Championships, holding them for over a hundred days before dropping them to the Dude Busters (Caylen Croft and Curt Hawkins.)
Them Rotundo Boys (Not their official Team name, but it should’ve been) would continue teaming into early 2010 until the brothers would be tested as singles competitors. By June, Windham Rotunda would get yet another ring name. A ring name that fans would remember for years to come. Husky Harris.
A long time ago. Back before NXT became a third brand. Even before it would become a development territory. It was kind of like a game show. A competition where developmental talent would compete in challenges for a chance at a WWE contract. Husky Harris debuted on WWE NXT Season 2, where he’d be paired up with Cody Rhodes. All NXT “Rookies” were given a “Pro” in the form of an active roster member. Harris wouldn’t win. — Season 2’s contract would go to Kaval (Low-Ki.) But despite this loss, Harris still ended up on the main roster later that year. Along with another third-generation star, the son of Curt “Mr. Perfect” Henning and grandson of Lary “The Ax” Henning, Michael McGillicutty. The two legacies showed up at the Hell in the Cell Pay-Per-View (They weren’t Premium Live Events yet,) aiding Nexus leader Wade Barrent in defeating the undefeatable John Cena.
Husky Harris would stay with the Nexus until January 2011. He’d be written off TV and sent back to FCW for seasoning. His return to FCW would give a very selective amount of fans a taste of Windham Rotunda’s penchant for horror. Axl Mulligan was a hockey-mask-wearing brute. Modeled after slasher flick villains. This character would never get on FCW TV, and Rotunda would continue as Husky Harris well into 2012. During this run, Husky Harris and brother Bo Rotunda became two-time FCW Tag Team Champions.
This time, the brothers would drop the titles to the team of future contender for worst wrestling commentary in history, Cory Graves, and the son of late, great Big Van Vader, Jake Carter (who incidentally are the ones they took the belts from.) Within weeks, Husky Harris would fade completely, and Windham Rotunda would again take another name. Bray Wyatt.
Inspired heavily by Waylon Mercy (A gimmick portrayed by Bray’s father’s former US Express Tag Team partner Dan Spivey,) the swamp-dwelling, backwoods, hillbilly cult leader would almost instantly start popping up on FCW TV and at WWE house shows throughout the rest of 2012. He’d partner quite briefly with fellow NXT Season 2 loser Eli Cottonwood. After making it to a single episode of the newly re-branded NXT TV, an injury in late June or early July would take Wyatt out of the ring for a considerable period. But he’d be back on TV by November.
Returning on the November 7th episode of NXT, Bray Wyatt preached to the crowd before bringing out Luke Harper to deal with Jason Jordan. By December, Bray would get back in the ring for one match with Aiden English and then transitioned into more of a manager role, forming The Wyatt Family.
Anticipation was as high as the hopes for Bray and his “sons” in WWE. Their vignettes had captivated a largely jaded wrestling audience. It was seemingly impossible to not get sucked into the gravitational orbit of Bray Wyatt’s otherworldly charisma. It was easy to believe this man was a cult leader. Like the awe-inspiring Method Actors of our generation (Daniel Day-Lewis. Heath Ledger. Kirk Lazarus,) Windham Rotunda vanished into his role, becoming his character.
Under Bray, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan came together as The Wyatt Family, competing in and ultimately losing a tournament for the vacant NXT Tag Team Titles in the finals to the team of British Ambition (Adrian Neville and Oliver Grey.) This did nothing to halt the momentum being built up by Bray and his Family, and the trio would be Main Roster bound come May. Debuting in a pre-taped vignette, The Wyatt Family declared: “We’re coming.” Fan interest was instantly peaked. This was something different. Darker. Edgier than anything WWE had been offering at the time. Over the next few weeks, fans would be treated to more vignettes featuring The Wyatt Family.
Before the standard Monday night Raw intro of Kromestatik’s “Tonight is the Night,” the July 8th, 2013 edition of Raw Live from Baltimore, MD, opened with a vignette. Obey. Danger. We are coming. And later on the show, they came, they saw, and they kicked Kane’s ass. After a win over Christian (Christian Cage), Kane would be the first to come face-to-face with The Wyatt Family. Marching through the dark, guided only by the light of Bray’s lantern, The Wyatt Family took to the ring. Well, Luke Harper and Erick Rowan did—Bray sat ringside in a rocking chair, observing as his “sons” beat down the Big Red Machine.
Bray and his Family would spend the next few years bouncing around the card thanks to a mix of stop/start booking and a lack of understanding from management. Angles with top names all showed incredible potential. Though none really amounted to much. In September 2014, The Wyatt Family would split for the first time. Having “fixed” Luke Harper and Erick Rowan, Bray set them free and began trying to recruit the once and future Jon Moxley to his way. He was unsuccessful.
The career of Bray Wyatt could easily be summed up in one word: Dropped-ball. Of WWE’s many big Bray booking blunders, it’s difficult to say which was the most egregious. But a case could be made for his Undertaker WrestleMania feud. This should’ve been the passing of the big spooky torch. Ideally, Bray would’ve been the one to end the Dead Man’s Mania streak, not Lesnar. And in a perfect world, he’d have done so by defeating Taker in a casket match. It would’ve been poetic—Bray Wyatt putting Undertaker to rest, defeating him in one of Undertaker’s own specialty matches. A WrestleMania moment for the ages. Alas, that was not how things played out. In his second WrestleMania match, Bray Wyatt lost to Undertaker. Just as he’d lost to John Cena the previous year. A win over either could’ve secured Bray’s status as a Main Event threat. Instead, WWE chose to book the “Eater of Worlds” less like Galactus and more like Mole Man (Those are Fantastic Four villains, you nerds.)
Not knowing what to do with this massively over superstar, WWE hit the rest button and reformed The Wyatt Family in the summer of 2015. This time, the group added a new heavy, another probable megastar on who the ball would be fumbled, Braun Strowman. — Oddly enough, The Wyatt Family redo got over. Fans were willing to forget the past and accept the now, even after the pointless WWE Draft split the Family between Raw and Smackdown! The split kept Bray and Harper together on Smackdown! And there they’d start a new family. This one with a slippery little snake called Randy Orton. Another front-runner for the biggest Bray booking blunder, what started out as compelling, slowly morphed into catastrophic.
February 12th, 2017, saw Bray Wyatt capture his first WWE World Championship. He’d drop it a day short of fifty days at WrestleMania 33 to his former bestie, Randy Orton. Bray remained in high-profile feuds, rarely coming out on top. Still, the fans backed their cult leader, waiting for the day WWE woke up and smelled the money on the table. WWE did get woken, tossing Bray into an angle with “Woken” Matt Hardy in November. An angle that carried into the new year, resulting in the men joining forces as the Deleters of Worlds. The duo picked up the vacant Raw Tag Team titles at WWE’s blood-money-sponsored Greatest Royal Rumble. A couple months later, they’d lose their belts to Bray’s former Nexus partner Michael McGillicutty, now Curtis Axel, and former brother Bo Rotunda, now Bo Dallas. And for the most part, that was it for the Deleters of Worlds. Allegedly, their split was the result of creative being annoyed with Bray and Matt constantly pitching ideas. That is absolutely insane. Matt and Bray were literally doing creatives job for them. And instead of taking their ideas and running with them, they complained and got the team disbanded. Insanity!
Without explanation, Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy were taken off TV. They’d keep working house shows, sometimes as a pair, others as singles. In his time away from television, Bray reinvented himself yet again. And again, proved that no matter what he was doing, the people wanted to see it done. No doubt, taking inspiration from his latest former Tag Team partner’s time being Broken, Bray Wyatt welcomed the world into his Firefly Fun House.
Like all of Bray Wyatt’s TV returns, this run kicked off with a series of vignettes. Windham Rotunda had created an entire mythos for the Bray Wyatt persona. A whole backstory rich with supporting characters and world-building. Much of it was never given the room to grow, but all of it was on display in the Firefly Fun House. Bray’s whole story to that point was re-imagined into some twisted children’s program complete with puppet sidekicks and a sweater-clad, cheery Bray Wyatt. Bray’s new friendly, LSD Mr. Rogers personality did come with a dark side. Far darker than the swamp man we’d met years earlier. Darker and more… Fiendish. Dun dun duuun!
Straight out of a horror flick, The Fiend clawed its way from the darkness of Bray’s noggin. A demonic nightmare version of himself. A monster, complete with a horrifying, monstrous face to scar all the wee little ones. And maybe a few of the grown ones as well. Legendary special-effects guru Tom Savini helped ensure The Fiend’s frightening status by designing his mask.—This is the dude that did the make-up on Dawn of the Dead (78), Friday the 13th (80), Creepshow, and a lot more, so you know he knows a thing or two about scary. Keeping with the slasher villain motif, The Fiend returned to the WWE seeking revenge for past wrongs.
After a slight booking hiccup at Hell in the Cell involving Seth Rollins, Harley Quinn’s sledgehammer, and Referee stoppage WWE got their crap together and let The Fiend loose. He’d take the WWE Universal title off Randy Orton. This could be seen as good or bad. On one hand, the title reign was well deserved. On the other hand, a character like The Fiend doesn’t really need a title. He’s meant to be similar to a Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers—You think those chumps care about championship titles? Probably not. — Though Jason has competed in wrestling matches in Japan, so there’s that. Regardless of how you feel about The Fiend as a champion, everyone should be able to come together and agree The Fiend dropping the belt to Goldberg was (Now say it with us kids) another big Bray booking blunder.
A better writer could write a whole book exploring the stupidity of having a 97-year-old man (Goldberg was about 53) defeat an unstoppable, monstrous nightmare creature from a twisted pocket dimension clean for the top prize. Like the championship, The Fiend did not need the loss to Goldberg. Not that that loss brought any negative reproductions. Moving right along, The Fiend set his lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes… On the very heart and soul of the WWE Universe, John Cena. Their clash happened during lockdown (the COVID one, not the TNA one) at WrestleMania 36 Night 2. Their bout was a surreal experiment in pro wrestling.
Akin to Broken Matt Hardy’s Final Deletion Match in Impact Wrestling, The Fiend’s Firefly Fun House Match pushed the limits of what wrestling fans think of the sport. Though Final Deletion and much of the Broken Hardy stuff are more comparable to the work of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Brilliant in its own special way but nowhere near as in-depth and personal as the Firefly Fun House. If Broken Hardy is wrestling booked by Tim and Eric, then The Firefly Fun House is wrestling when David Lynch has the book. And it will never be okay that we’ll never get any more of it.
The Firefly Fun House Match took fans and John Cena on a trip through space and time. Bringing us all back to Cena’s first televised match on Smackdown! Bray Wyatt stood in for Kurt Angle, issuing an open challenge that John Cena would answer. Clips of the 2002 Smackdown! Showdown between Angle and Cena intercut with Cena and Bray alone in a dark ring. An unsettling playfulness radiates throughout the segment. There has never been and will never be a wrestling match like this again. A masterclass in storytelling packed to the brim with Easter eggs, references, and subtext. The Firefly Fun House was an evolved form of wrestling.
With John Cena in Bray Wyatt and The Fiend’s rearview, his sights again turned to the WWE Universal Championship. A lackluster feud with former Wyatt Family member Braun Storwman cumulated in Bray’s second Universal Title run and an intriguing alliance with Alexa Bliss, which fell apart before ever really coming together. Bray’s second Universal Title reign was short-lived. Seven days short. Winning the belt at SummerSlam on August 23rd and losing it at Payback on August 30th. There was no point in putting the belt on Bray/The Fiend only to take it off him in a Triple Threat where he didn’t even get pinned. Braun Strowman took the pin. Why even take the belt off Braun in the first place? Absolute stupidity. Almost as stupid as the remainder of Bray’s first run with the company. By July 2021, the WWE had wished Bray Wyatt all the best in his future endeavors.
Oh, what could’ve been… For those that subscribe to the Many Worlds Theory (essentially, every choice we don’t make creates a branching reality), there is a world somewhere in the vast multiverse- where Windham Rotunda applied his trade elsewhere. AEW Perhaps? With the insane creative freedom offered to All Elite wrestlers, one can’t even begin to imagine the kind of brilliant madness Windham/Bray/Husky/Fiend/etcetera would come up with. An angle with the Dark Order. Malakai Black. Sting. Imagine a world where Sting’s last match was a Lighting Bug Laughing House Match (Cause ya know, AEW wouldn’t be able to use the name Firefly Fun House.) What a wonderful world that must be. But in our world, Bray Wyatt did the unexpected and re-signed with the only home he’d ever known, WWE.
A little over a year after releasing Bray Wyatt, WWE busted out that old chestnut, the vignette. Instantly, fans were buzzing about the White Rabbit vignettes and the possibility of Bray’s return. Amplifying the hype was a series of QR Codes that led to a cryptic site alluding to the upcoming Extreme Rules event. Matt Riddle defeated Seth “Freakin'” Rollins in that Extreme Rules Main Event. As he celebrated his victory, the lights went down, the music came up, and Bray Wyatt appeared. Accompanied by all his Firefly Fun House puppet friends, only they weren’t puppets anymore. The returned and again reinvented Bray Wyatt’s final feud was a brief and forgettable one with LA Knight, ending at the Royal Rumble in a less-than-exciting gimmick match.—Not just a gimmick match but a sponsored gimmick match. A Mountain Dew Pitch Black Match (A hardcore match with blacklights.) A five-minute affair where Bray got the W.
Seeds were planted for an angle with Bobby Lashley to go into WrestleMania; unfortunately, those plans would never materialize. An illness forced Bray out of action in February. Reports surfaced in August stating Bray was nearing a return. However, that same month, at the age of 36, Windham Rotunda died. His impact on the industry will be felt for generations. And a day will come when his name is mentioned in the same breath as the other legends and icons who shaped the business. Windham Rotunda was an artist. Wrestling was his medium. And Bray Wyatt was his masterpiece.